Though for today:

A member shares:

“I am a writer and I use my computer for personal and business purposes.  The other day I realized that  my ‘My Documents’ folder was a mile long and I couldn’t find an important script I had written, so I knew I had to do something fast to find it.

“Stepping back, I recalled what I had avoided: Over the years, every document I had ever written was in that one folder, and documents that named one thing from years ago often contained something entirely different.

“I realized that part of my amends to myself was to bring order out of this chaos.  I needed to bring dignity to this, which was my livelihood.

“I started by creating folder names that related to the projects I work on.  I had a lot of old projects on my computer, so I created a folder called ‘_ Projects’, and another called ‘Archived Projects’.  (I put ‘_’ at the beginning of the Projects folder so it would rise to the beginning of the alphabetical list of folders.) Then, I dragged and dropped any documents into one or the other folder.

“Now my work was simple.  If I came across a document from a completed project , I put it in the ‘Archived Projects’ folder.  If it was for a current project, I stored it in ‘_ Projects’.

“I usually work on more than one project at a time, so after I had moved all the documents to either Projects or Archived Projects I then added sub folders for each project and began dragging and dropping files there.  So my ‘_ Projects’ folder had a ‘Project A’  sub folder, a ‘Project B’ sub folder, etc.

“As I discovered garbage files – obsolete versions I deleted them.  The result was that I brought order out of chaos.  I went thru the files that were left because I couldn’t make sense of the file names.  Scanning the contents, I realized I had to rename them then I was able to store them appropriately, or I had to delete them.

“This whole exercise took me a couple of hours to complete, but now I can navigate right to the active work I need to do.  Files are now grouped together in a logical way.  I can intuitively find things which used to elude me!”

Is clutter hurting my work?

Meditation for today:

It is freeing to discard what is unnecessary.  This includes physical, electronic, and emotional clutter.  I am free to become more focused on work that truly matters.  I can improve things with my work.

Affirmation for today:

I will build upon the work I have done so far.  As I bring order to my work environment, I realize that I have done a lot, and this inspires me to do more.

Prayer for today:

I pray to be clear of fear to look at what I have left behind, and for the enthusiasm that can bring order out of chaos.

Great books about physically de-cluttering your space (click to read more):

(Some of the links on this page will bring you to Amazon where if  you decide to buy something, Amazon will give us a commission. This helps us defray the costs of running this website and does not add to your cost.)